CANADIENS
Montreal

5-2

SENATORS
Ottawa

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Drouin – Domi – Shaw
Byron – Kotkaniemi – Lehkonen
Peca – Chaput – Agostino
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Kulak – Weber
Schlemko – Petry
Reilly – Benn

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Hudon, Deslauriers, Ouellet

Injuries

Armia, Juulsen

Game Report 

It’s no secret that beyond Shea Weber and Jeff Petry, the Canadiens defence has been woeful this season (and last.) But to make Habs fans feel better about their team, they will get a close look at the Senators this week with back-to-back games. And the Ottawa defence is downright terrible.

After a solid opening period, the Canadiens fell asleep. For the first dozen minutes in the second it was all Sens, forcing Carey Price to make save after save. At that point, the coaching staff swapped Paul Byron for Andrew Shaw.

Bryon’s speed was an immediate boost to the Domi line. They scored twice in under three minutes. And less than a minute later, Shaw, Artturi Lehkonen, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi combined to put the Canadiens ahead by three, a lead they took into the third period.

With two goals and an assist, it was a night that Domi got to wear the ‘player of the game’ cape. But he wasn’t perfect. Domi made a dumb decision to go after fourth-liner Drake Batherson for a clean hit delivered in the direction of Andrew Shaw. It is the type of ill-timed undisciplined play that has sullied the 23-year old otherwise solid first third of the season.

This time, the Canadiens shaky penalty-kill bailed out Domi, and went on to have a perfect night against the Senators 27th ranked road power-play.

The two teams will face each other again on Thursday night in Ottawa. The Senators are pointing to five minutes late in the second period that made the difference. And Canadiens can expect that things will be tougher when they travel to the nation’s capital. 

===

▲  Carey Price, Max Domi, Paul Byron, Shea Weber, Jonathan Drouin

▼  David Schlemko, Mike Reilly, Jordie Benn

1. Max Domi  MTL
2. Jonathan Drouin  MTL
3. Brendan Gallagher  MTL

• “None of your business. I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell everyone; it’s called coaching.”
• On Andrew Shaw and Paul Byron, “Ironically, they both became good fits on both lines I put them on.”
• “To win big games like tonight, it takes your best players to be successful and that’s what they did tonight.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “We wanted to get off to a good start and keep the rhythm going for 60 minutes. We’ve played against Craig Anderson enough to know just how good he is and that he’s tough to beat if we don’t put enough pucks on net. We did that tonight.”
• “This was an important game. We were on a bit of a skid where we were winless in five and then we won one and lost one. But now we have to be ready for Thursday, because they’ll be tough at home.”

Max Domi

• “I think we played exactly the way we wanted to. Our objective was to set the tone of the game and that’s what we did.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

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